OK, I am back to the subject of squeeze pouch foods or as another cute 2 1/2 year old called it squeegy fruit. I have written about this before as I was fascinated by these when they first hit the market. On the one hand, I get that they are convenient and are easy to use for those first months of pureed baby foods, but beyond that, I think they are given to older children.

It seems that more and more kids are enjoying squeegy fruit and also slurping pureed vegetables. The issue is these pouches foods are being masqueraded as healthy foods. Yes, they are fruits and vegetables often mixed together, but if you read the labels it gets a bit more complicated.

I see so many toddlers in my office who are happily sucking down a packet of apples and blueberries. These parents are adamant that their kids don't drink juice boxes or eat junk food but at the same time they are letting their children suck down several of these pouches a day. This is also often in place of meals, as many of these children are described as picky eaters. I saw a little boy today who had been vomiting, but was on the exam table with pouch to mouth as he drank/at a combo of apples, peas and something else. (note: not recommended when vomiting).

So....I decided to look up the nutritional value of these pouches....many of them although all organic or described as healthy do contain a lot of carbohydrate and sugars. Actually, as much as two fruit roll ups! Yes, I did a little comparison and 2 of the dreaded fruit rolls ups contain 23 grams of carbs and almost 11 grams of sugar.....while a 3.2 ounce pouch has somewhere between 19-24 grams of carbs and between 14-23 grams of sugar.

The point of this is not to say that squeeze pouches are bad, or that a child should never have a fruit roll up. Rather, it is to point out that even healthy snacks can be fu

There's a bit of a battle brewing among some scientific communities over whether organic vegetables & meats are healthier for kids (and adults) in the long run. The controversy revolves around whether the amount of synthetic pesticides used in conventional farming is unsafe for consumers, particularly children whose bodies are still developing.

For the first time the American Academy of Pediatricians (AAP) is weighing in on the subject. The AAP said in a recent report, that at least with some foods, buying organic is worth the effort to avoid pesticide residue. That position is contrary to a recent study, released by Stanford University, that suggested organic foods and meats offer no health advantages for consumers. The Stanford study did show that 38% of conventional produce tested contained pesticide residue compared with only 7% of organic produce. However, the study did not address whether government standards for safe amounts of pesticide residue were sufficient to avoid health problems.

The AAP is concerned because babies of female farm workers in California showed small but significant developmental and motor delays when their mothers were exposed to pesticides at levels similar to those deemed acceptable in conventionally grown produce while pregnant.

While no studies have been done to see if exposure to similar levels of pesticides from simply eating produce causes similar problems, early exposure to lead and other toxins even at low levels- is known to be harmful to children. The AAP believes that caution is advisable when considering conventionally grown produce.

"Clearly if you eat organic produce, you have fewer pesticides in your body," Joel Forman, an associate professor of pediatrics at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and a lead author of the new report, tells NPR's The Salt. That's particularly important for young children, he says, because they are especially vulnerable to chemical expo